Mr Shadow: a song composed by Artificial Intelligence

Sony has been funding some interesting AI research into music composition, with Flow Machines.

I find it a bit less impressive than some other music composition approaches, since the software only handles the basic composition, with the arrangement and performance handled by the human musician. You’ll have to look elsewhere for full-stack machine music. Still, that means that it’s already well-suited to human-machine collaboration. These are the kinds of tools that will drive the future.

There is, of course, a Soundcloud account for the Flow Machines. And the research website has a ton of examples, including showing off its flexibility in variations, re-harmonization, and different instruments. (I like this one.)